Benefits of Audio and E-Learning


Audio can bring benefits to any e-learning course or lesson. Four principles can illustrate the benefits audio can give to the learner. Each principle has its own benefits,and it will depend on the situation the audio has been implemented.

Contiguity Principle – presenting spoken words at the same time as corresponding graphics.

Narrated animation, narrated video, or narrated series of still frames, allow audience to learn best since the spoken words describe the element or event on screen.

Modality Principle – present words as speech, rather than on-screen text.

People learn more deeply from multimedia lessons when words explaining concurrent graphics are presented as speech rather than as on-screen text.

Redundacy principle – consider adding on-screen text to narration in special situations.

When spoken text is presented alone (that is, without concurrent graphics), you can help the learner process the words by providing concurrent printed text.

Coherence principle – avoid e-lessons with extraneous audio.

The cognitive theory of multimedia learning predicts that students will learn more deeply from multimedia presentations that do not contain interesting but extraneous sounds and music than from multimedia presentations that do.

As it was mentioned before, e-learning can benefit from audio depending on the situation it has been applied. In some situations, audio can be more a detractor rather than a benefit, depending on the amount or sound level. Audio must be carefully considered and applied to any e-learning course or lesson.


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